The present invention concerns a device and method for stiffening tall thin tower structures. More particularly, the present invention concerns a device and method for stiffening long, tapered, antenna towers.
Because of the number of telephones, fax machines, cellular phones, and other communication devices currently used, the need for more, stronger and even taller, antenna towers has become prevalent throughout the country. As a result, long, slender antenna towers are appearing nationwide. Typically, these towers are thin, tubular structures, which start out with a large diameter base and taper down to a thinner cross-section. The towers are usually bedecked with a number of devices such as microwave relay stations, cellular telephone cells, satellite dishes and other types of communication hardware. Each such tower can be designed to hold a number of such devices, depending on its structural abilities.
Further, these types of antennas are often placed on top of tall structures such as buildings and/or in open fields, where they can receive and transmit signals without interference. As a result of isolated location placement, the towers are typically subjected to buffeting winds and other potentially damaging weather conditions.
Further, the towers which act somewhat like cantilevered beams (in that they are attached at one end, the ground, and are unattached at the top), are affected by the weight of the electronic equipment, and other equipment, placed near the top of the tower, such that a moment force acts on the tower. As a result, great forces are placed on the tower causing, often times, the tower to sway and/or have a pronounced bend or lean. This can make these towers unsightly, and give the impression of imminent collapse. In extreme wind or other conditions, these towers can receive such severe forces that they can collapse, causing extensive and expensive damage to communications devices, as well as the destruction of the antenna tower and disruptions in communications. Such collapses also pose dangers to persons and property in the vicinity of the tower at the time of the collapse.
It has been found, that the present design of a monopole tower, is one of the most popular as it presents a most appealing shape. Use of more heavily reinforced or structurally complex towers, including those made with lattice frames, such as high tension electrical towers, or having a variety of Guy wires attached, such as to the apex of a tower and then in a radius about the base of the tower, can be unsightly, more costly, undesirable and difficult to fit in a small space. It is, therefore, desirable to produce a monopole type tower, that can be structurally strengthened so that it can withstand the weight of several pieces of generally heavy communications equipment, at the tower's upper regions. It is desirable that such towers withstand wind and other natural forces that cause present and prior art towers to have the problems described above.